Chapter 413: Comrades Help Each Other [I]

Nathan and Ivan were sitting in the dim light of Debriefing Room 12, staring at each other intently.

Ivan was bored.

Because for the last twenty minutes, this guy wasn’t saying anything Ivan hadn’t prepared a counter for already.

The mission they were sent on had been a complete success, but the

Equipment Report

sitting on the table between them... was a problem.

A Disrupt Pulse-generator that was issued and authorised by the Academy for their mission... was gone. It was stolen by one of the ten Cadets who had just returned.

If it stayed missing, everyone on the team would be finished. They would all be given a red mark on their reports by their Instructor Supervisor.

No Hunter Agency wants a Cadet with a red mark on their academic record.

Meaning the career they had all spent more than a decade preparing for would be over before it began.

And as for the thief who actually

stole

the Pulse-generator, they’d be lucky if they only got expelled.

An Essence Disrupt Pulse-generator was a

Rare

-grade artifact that could destabilize a

B

-ranker’s core, rendering them unable to cast their Cards.

A thief who stole such an instrument of war would be deemed a criminal — a liability who’d end up in a labor camp for life.

No one else on the team knew about this yet.

It was a joint-squad mission. Meaning instead of the standard five, ten Cadets from two different Squads were sent to pull off an extraction of some high-profile spy in the East.

The aforementioned spy, a second-year girl who barely seemed a day older than nineteen, was currently reporting her findings to the Grandmasters in a separate wing.

Everyone else was discharged, either sleeping in their beds by now or partying somewhere after a job well done.

Only these two Cadets — Ivan and Nathan — had stayed back.

They were now locked in an argument over logistics because these two were the ones responsible for the final inventory check.

Both of them belonged to different Squads and had more or less acted like leaders of their respective groups during the mission.

Needless to say, there were several pre-existing ego clashes waiting to be settled.

Ivan leaned back, his chair creaking in the silence.

He didn’t look like a man whose future was on a guillotine. He looked far more composed than Nathan would’ve liked.

"The report is already in the system, Nate," Ivan said, keeping his voice flat. "Leo — who’s from

your

squad, by the way — submitted the digital log the moment we touched the tarmac. He’s efficient. Usually, that’s a trait I admire. Tonight, it’s a death sentence."

This was the opening gambit Ivan had chosen — putting the burden of time in focus.

But Nathan wasn’t the one to panic so easily. He stared back at Ivan, his fingers tapping on the table in an uneven rhythm. "Leo is an idiot. But he’s a loyal idiot. He wouldn’t have submitted it without talking to me first if he knew anything was missing. Which means, when he checked the bag at the extraction point, the Pulse-generator was there."

Ivan raised an eyebrow.

Nathan was smart. That much was clear. He was setting the timeline.

By claiming the artifact was there at asset recovery, he was narrowing the window of theft to the four-hour travel that took them to get to the transport carrier.

He was trying to see if Ivan would flinch or try to expand that window.

If he argued it was stolen earlier, Ivan would admit his own oversight.

If he agreed, he’d be trapped in the same room with him during the only time it could have vanished.

So he agreed.

"Sure, it was there," Ivan shrugged. "But let’s talk about the transport carrier. If I remember correctly, your squad was sitting on the left, mine on the right. The equipment bag was placed in the center aisle. To reach it, someone from my side would have to cross the line of sight of five of your people."

Nathan stopped tapping his fingers on the table. "And someone from my side would only have to reach down. That’s what you’re implying?"

"I’m only stating a physical reality," Ivan said. "If I stole it, I’m a magician. If

you

stole it, which I know you did, you’re just a guy taking advantage of a shadow."

Nathan narrowed his eyes. He didn’t rise to the bait of the insult and still kept his composure. "If I had it, Ivan, I wouldn’t be sitting here. I’d be figuring out how to smuggle it out of the Academy. The fact that I’m trying to negotiate a solution with you proves I’m looking for it just as hard as you are."

"Or," Ivan shook his head, "you’re sitting here because you didn’t expect your buddy Leo to submit the report so quickly. The Grandmasters are hearing that girl we brought in. Right now it’s 4 a.m. Her debrief should be done in three hours. You can’t do shit by 7 a.m. Your brilliant plan was brilliantly screwed over by your own teammate."

Nathan let out the closest thing he could manage to a non-committal scoff. "Even if I go along with your fantasy and admit you’re right, why would I still be sitting here? If I had the Pulse-generator, and I knew the report was in, I’d have ditched the damn thing in the ventilation shafts or the harbor by now. A red mark is still better than a face-to-face with you?"

"Hmm, I don’t know," Ivan pretended to look thoughtful. "Oh! Maybe it’s because your family is on the verge of financial ruin? Probably the reason why you stole that artifact too, because you’re not getting your allowance? If you get a red mark now, your life is over with no family money and no career."

Nathan’s eyes shot wide in surprise, like a bucket of cold water had been poured over him.

"My family’s finances are fine," he tried to retort but didn’t sound very convincing even to his own ears. "You’re deflecting here!"

"Am I?" Ivan cocked his head. "Okay, then let’s go to Instructor Reichardt right now."

"...What?"

"Yeah, since you’re adamant about not having the Pulse-generator on you and I know I clearly don’t have it, let’s report it to the Instructor right now and be done with it. We’ll at least get some honesty points."

Nathan’s jaw tightened, but he didn’t say anything. Clearly, he wasn’t expecting this kind of play.

"What happened?" Ivan leaned forward a bit, letting the dim light illuminate the side of his face. "Why do you care about a red mark if your family is doing fine financially? You don’t need a career as a noble, do you? You’ll still have connections and money even after graduation, won’t you? I know I certainly would."